Practitioners of acupuncture and of alternative medicine of various types often practice moxibustion to provide warmth to various regions of the body of a person, and most particularly to those portions of the body having acupuncture points, in order to stimulate circulation through acupuncture points and induce a smoother flow of blood. In such practice, moxa, generally a mugwort herb, is burnt to create heat and fumes that are applied near the skin, often at regions of the skin beneath which acupuncture points exist. The moxa generally come in the form of a elongate cylindrical structures that are sometimes somewhat conically shaped, and, regardless of shape, are often called cones or sticks.
Treatment by moxa can be used on its own, or in conjunction with acupuncture treatment.
In the prior art there have been developed moxa burning bowls that are generally shaped as an inverted bowl, with the bottom open to be applied over a body part of a patient/user, with the bowl often being cylindrical with a substantially closed top, except that the substantially closed top may have a plurality of sockets for receipt therein of moxa cones or sticks, with the bottoms of the cones or sticks engaged in the sockets, and with the cones or sticks being upstanding therefrom, with upper ends of the sticks being lit.
The thus lit moxa creates heat and fumes that traverse downwardly through the upstanding cones or sticks, into the interior of the inverted moxa bowl, exposing the surface of the skin of the user to which the bowl is applied to experience reception of heat and/or fumes from the burning moxa. Generally, the lower peripheral edge of the inverted moxabowl has some level of seal, to prevent escape of substantial amounts of heat and/or fumes.
A disadvantage of currently known prior art moxa burning bowls is that they are often difficult to safely overly portions of the body of a user that are not flat. For example, if a burning moxa bowl is applied to the irregular surface of the back of a hand, portions of a foot, an abdomen, a knee or the like, where such surfaces are not flat, not only will substantial amounts of heat and/or fumes from burning moxa escape where the lower end of the moxa bowl does not seal against the skin of the user, but the irregular surface of the skin of a user may make the moxa bowl sit unstably on the skin of a user, wobbling, and potentially falling off the location of the body part of the user to which it is to be applied. Also, because the burning moxa cones or sticks will ordinarily be hot at their upper, lit ends, the instability of a moxa burning bowl may pose serious burning risks to the patient or user, to which the treatment is being applied, for example because of a hot moxa cone or stick dropping off onto the skin of a patient, possibly causing a burn that could be as much as a second degree burn.
Accordingly, prior art moxa burning bowls often limit where on the surface of a patient the treatment can safely be applied.
Accordingly, with prior art moxa burning bowls, not only is there possibly a decrease in the effectiveness of the moxa treatment, but risk of burn to the patient because of an unbalanced bowl may impose a danger to the patient.
Such dangers can also be experienced when a burning moxa bowl is applied, for example, to the abdomen of a patient, in the event that the patient coughs or gives a sudden movement, and the above-discussed adverse conditions can be experienced.